Complexity
It's interesting to see the theme of complexity pop up in unexpected places. A couple nights ago on the Daily Show with Atul Gawande. He was talking about how complexity is a problem for many experts, and how a simple checklist can save lives, but many experts felt that a checklist was too much of an ego bash to take. And I guess he was plugging his book, the Checklist Manifesto. Guess that Connectivisms ideas about complexity are getting around. I know that this isn't a new idea, they are in fact, fairly old. When we go through our primary school education we learn using building blocks (and pretty much the same building blocks that we've always learned with). We learn a new concept, repeat it until it becomes second nature, then build on it. What ways can a simple tool like a checklist improve education?
As subjects become more complex, perhaps we could take this approach to remind educators (or ourselves) that even though we are at an advanced stage of understanding a subject - perhaps deeper and aware of more facets than our learners - we should always consider the fundamental underpinnings of those topics. Maybe checklists can assist us in seeing patterns where grouping makes sense; that makes checklists useful as a sensemaking strategy.
Are Internet Addicts Isolated?
I was reading the article that the Guardian posted about excessive use of the Internet being a possible relation to increased depression, to which they posed the idea that maybe the people who use the Internet "excessively" are predisposed to an isolated life, where depression is a likely symptom.
I know I use the Internet excessively, more than most people, and I often wonder about the effects of this use, and the isolation I sometimes inflict on myself. I certainly wouldn't consider myself bereft of any human contact, and certainly I'm not a melancholy sort of fellow.... still, the study abstract does not define what addiction is, nor what it means to be addicted or how much use construes addiction (and the three academic libraries I have access to don't link to the journal it was published in).
Combine the information that 14% or so of excessive Internet users are also depressed, which begs the question, what's the percentage of folks that are depressed in general? Do we have reason to be worried? This sort of infographic that recounts the State of the Internet 2009 adds a level of depth to those finding... well, maybe it does. Does that mean that approximately 13% of people aged 18-29 are depressed?
Who’s Watching The Wikimen, Or Wikipeople
I just found in a random search (for editing Wikipedia) an article by Wired about an effort to see who's editing the world's largest encyclopedia. I have some privacy reservations about this sort of third party monitoring, especially if corporations are turning the screws on people writing about their excesses. I guess though, if everyone can do it, everyone should. Of course, corporations are the sort of bodies that have people who can spare the time to do this sort of activity, which could lead to that sort of misuse. Now, I'm sure that's not happening, because corporations never behave badly. Right?
Amazon (Non)Functionality
So, Amazon.ca. Where's the login link/button thing?
Really, if you want to get people to login, putting the link under "personalized recommendations" is about as intuitive as putting it under "really stupid".
Salinger’s Death
“I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.” - Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye.
It's strangely comforting knowing that Salinger got our future so right. The quote from Salinger might explain a lot about the motivations behind the usage of a lot of web 2.0 tools. Perhaps it's not the connection but the promotion that people get out of it. Certainly, connections are important, vital even, to life. But is that what we want when we tweet, or update our facebook? Do we want a connection, or do we want our fifteen minutes of fame? Are there times where we might want one and not the other? Does the near limitless connections we make create fame? We've seen that in blogger-land, where certain blogs have enough followers that the person behind them become celebrities of sorts. In that case, is Perez Hilton really making connections or just making statements?
All The Pros, No Cons
Educational Networking: The Important Role Web 2.0 Will Play in Education
Sure, it's a nicely put together report that also is a selling point... but things like this, even though well meaning, when they fail to mention critical consumption of information it leaves a sour taste.
More About Visual Literacy
I originally pulled this link from my Twitter feed via @VenessaMiemis which talks about information aesthetics, and of course, visual design. I 've embedded the same video below, because I think it's a well done, quick hit about the importance of visual literacy. I guess I should start getting those Tufte books...
What I Learned This Week (Part 7)
I haven't had a hodge-podge of links for a while - so this collection dates back a couple weeks.
Topsy: New-ish Twitter search engine that provides a ranking of your popular tweets, and attempts to navigate the network of links between your tweets, retweets and more. I think we'll see many more of these sorts of popularity tools for Twitter pop up over this year as the general public tries to make sense of it.
Compare My Docs: I can see the plagiarism checking benefits for this (by comparing source material to essays) in addition to the versioning comparison that the site is aiming at. Sure, Turnitin is more robust, but it's also a pay-to-play service.
WordPress Opens Up in an effort to improve their overall design and user experience. I never really found WP to be that bad, although at times I can see how user experience can be improved. A good idea to outsource this to the crowd, we'll see the results fairly soon I suspect.
Gen M
I was reflecting on the affinity we have as a culture for naming things - categorizing them into boxes and such. We have my generation, Generation X, and Generation Y as the one that followed us. The current generation, the one my daughter belongs in, with their focus on mobile technology should be Gen M. I hope that this generation will be more mobile, able to change gears quickly and still have a moral compass attached to themselves and each other, rather than what the M could stand for: money. We've seen a couple brief attempts talking about the grassroots movements brought to the forefront from youth, and a recent report about the mediated lives youth live, which is increasingly mobile and on-the-go.
First Impressions
I've harped on a lot about how good visual design helps manage the first impression someone constructs. Here's a link to the article that discusses the way we process first impressions (in PDF format) and the Guardian article that discusses it. What's fascinating is the conclusion that we process our first impressions of people the same way (and the same part of the brain) that we process our first impressions of objects. Now, I'm slightly skeptical of the methodology - they used pictures of people on a screen rather than real people - which to me is perfect to study how people make first impressions of pictures, maybe not ideal otherwise. Additionally, it's interesting to see that part of this is done by an area that controls emotion, so logic is out, emotional responses in.
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Twitter Feed
- oh yeah, Weirdos - We've Got the Neutron Bomb is one of the best songs ever.
- if open education is going to evolve, it's got to act like glasnost
- RT @shelholtz: Your friends tweet that Johnny Depp is dead, then we're surprised when research concludes trust in peers has fallen? http ...
- send email to get form letter back saying it violated TOS. hmmm... talk about talking in circles. Photobucket = #fail (2/2)
- Photobucket removed a photo claiming it violated TOS. I look at TOS, nothing about bad words (which would be the only reason) email (1/2)
Blogroll
- A List Apart
- Bava Tuesdays / Jim Groom
- Clay Shirky's Internet Writings
- Connectivism
- Educational Technology.ca / Alec Couros
- Elearnspace / George Siemens
- Howard Rheingold
- Presentation Zen / Garr Reynolds
- The Ed Rush / Ed Webb